Protect Thyself
by weirdgirl42
Summary: Rose/10.5  After Journey's End, Rose and John are too busy protecting themselves to see the truth.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who_

_Author's Note: Post Journey's End so spoilers until then. I've had this bouncing around in my head for a while and have finally written it down. I appreciate any responses and hope you enjoy the story!_

**Protect Thyself**

She hadn't touched him in a month. Or, more precisely, twenty-seven days, three hours, eight minutes. At first he had been happy to learn that his exact sense of time had been one of the traits his human body had allowed him to maintain. After they left Norway and Rose began treating him like nothing more than a platonic house-guest, the ability to instinctively keep track of hours and minutes just felt like adding insult to injury.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost recall the taste of her lips on his. Could almost smell her skin and feel the ends of her hair brushing against his face. But it wasn't real, and it was slowly breaking his very-human heart.

Now he sat on the back porch of Pete and Jackie's large house. He had been living there ever since he'd arrived. Rose lived in a small house on the back of the expansive property that was probably once servants quarters. Though she was often at the main house for meals, he still felt like she might as well have been living on Saturn.

He had done something that day he wasn't sure about. His timelord/human brain told him it was the right thing to do but the rest of him wasn't so sure. So he sat on the back waiting for Rose to arrive for dinner. His hands were stuffed in the front pocket of his Manchester United sweatshirt and he shifted his jean-clad legs shifted slowly, causing the porch swing to rock back and forth gently.

Three days after arriving in the new universe he had wondered where hoodies had been all his life. While he still wore suits to the Torchwood offices occasionally, these days his normal outfit tended to be more casual. He had a closet full of jeans, sweatshirts, and even a few t-shirts with clever pictures or sayings on them. In many ways, not having to be the last of the timelords had its perks.

He kept the trainers though, had them in twelve different colors.

Even if he hadn't heard her footsteps on the gravel path that led to her house, he would have sensed her presence. Heightened senses were once of the timelord perks he still retained. As always, she smelled like apple shampoo and cucumber lotion and the alluring scent that was simply Rose herself.

"Pete said you wanted to talk to me."

John Noble Smith looked up and saw Rose Tyler standing against the porch railing, arms crossed over her chest, not quite meeting his eye. There had been a time, when he'd had a different body and they'd been in the right universe, where she would have sat down next to him on the swing. She would have leaned her arm against his, maybe even rested her head on his shoulder. He would have slipped his hand around hers and entwined their fingers together.

Now she always stayed at least a few feet away from him, and that make his brain even more convinced that he'd done the right thing.

"I've put in for a transfer to the Cairo office," he said, standing up and staring out over the gardens.

"You're leaving."

It wasn't the direct nature of the statement that caused his head to whip around to look at her face. It was the fact that underneath the resignation and hurt, he heard relief in her voice.

"You say that like you always knew I would," he accused.

Rose gave a sad smile, her eyes still glued to the wooden floor of the porch. "I did. I honestly didn't imagine you'd stay this long."

John had no idea how to respond to this. All this time, almost an entire month, she had just been waiting for him to leave. Waiting for the day when she could be rid of him. "Well I'm sorry for my extended presence." The words were meant to sting and by the way her face flinched he knew they had.

However, she didn't rise to the bait. When she spoke her voice was as even as ever. "I just worry about Tony you know. He loves you. S'gonna be real hard when you leave. He's not gonna understand. And the longer you stay the harder it'll be."

This was not the response John had expected at all. He'd been bracing himself for a diatribe on how he would never replace the Doctor and there was no use pretending that he could. His eyes darted over his shoulder where he could see Tony playing through the window.

"Why does it sound like you've been preparing for my departure since I got here?"

Rose finally looked up at met his gaze. "S'like you said on the beach that day John. You think like him, same memories and feelings. And I know him. I know you. I know you could never be happy here. Stranded like this. Stuck in London. And I know that it's my fault. If I could take it back I would. I'd never go through the void, he never would have been shot, you'd never be stuck in that body in this wrong universe wasting your time at Torchwood. But I can't take it back. So you can't forgive me, like I can't forgive myself."

John tried to process the words that were coming from her lips. "Is this why things have been so…wonky between us?"

Rose shrugged. "It was easier. If was going to lose you again anyway." She began to walk towards the back door but was stopped when he uttered one last word.

"Why?"

All of a sudden it was as if something broke inside Rose. A string that had been holding back her emotions just snapped and she spun around to face him again, anger blazing in her eyes. "Because it hurt alright?"

John took a step back, instinctively trying to separate himself from her rage.

"Five years ago I stood against a blank wall and begged to be sent back to you. I sat in that room for an entire day, way more than five and a half hours waiting for you to figure out a way to come for me. And then I stood on a beach and watched you disappear. All I wanted to do was reach out and touch you but you weren't there and it hurt!"

John could see the tears in her eyes and felt a familiar stinging behind his own eyes as well.

"Five years ago I felt something inside me die," Rose continued. "The only reason I didn't die was my mum and Pete and Tony. And then the stars went out and we created the cannon and I had something to live for again. But after all that I still could go back with him and I got you stranded here a well."

He wanted to object, wanted to reach out and pull her against his chest. But he was frozen in place, unable to even wipe the wetness of his face.

Rose let out a soft sob. "And you're you," she said, more softly now. "You're brilliant and perfect. But the TARDIS was your home and I took you away from it. I hate myself for that. But I can't be around when you start hating me too. I just can't go through that hurt all over again."

With that, Rose gave him one last look before she took off across the lawn towards her house. John fell back onto the porch swing, his shoulders slumped and his head between his knees. How had everything gotten so wrong? How could Rose think he could ever hate her?

A whiff of expensive perfume told him that Jackie was approaching and he soon felt her weight next to him on the swing. "You heard I assume?" he said without looking up.

"Course I heard. If we still lived at the Estates I think the whole building woulda heard."

John brought his hands to his face and rubbed his eyebrows with the tips of his fingers. "Was it really like that when she was left? Was it really that bad?"

"Oh Sweetheart," Jackie said, placing a hand on his back. "It was worse," she confessed.

John looked over at her, the pain evident on his face. "Tell me," he begged. "Please."

Jackie leaned back and took a breath, her hand still resting against John's back rubbing comforting circles as though he were a child. "She hasn't eaten chips since Canary Warf. Not one. Least not that I know of. First I thought it was cause they taste a little different here so I made her some myself, but when she saw them she started crying. Said that you two always used to have chips anytime something bad or scary happened."

John stifled a sob, remembering all the times they had laughed together in the TARDIS or on a park bench somewhere, passing the greasy paper that served as a bag back and forth between them.

"She wouldn't leave the house." Jackie said, her voice soft. "Stayed up in her room all the time. Especially after the trip to Norway. She only ate when I made her, or when Pete was able to talk her into it. And even then it was really only the bare minimum. Didn't you notice that she was thinner?"

John nodded, unable to speak.

"Eventually Mickey talked her into working for Torchwood and that helped some. Gave her something to keep her mind off it. But she still never went anywhere else. Just to work and then home. She loved being with Tony though, once he was born. Told him all those stories about you two, 'bout all the things you did together. Then the thing with the stars happened and it was like she was possessed. Spent all her time at Torchwood working on that cannon. Had to find a way back to you didn't she?"

"I didn't know," John said, though it came out as almost a plea.

"Course you didn't."

"I thought with you and Pete and Mickey she'd be alright. I never meant for any of this to happen."

Jackie ran her hand through his hair. "I know that Sweetheart."

Any other time and John would have rolled his eyes at the way she insisted on mothering him. Now, however, it just felt comforting. "I don't want to leave. I thought she didn't want me."

"Well it's no good telling me that is it?" Jackie stood up and put her hands on her hips. "Go down there and tell her then."

John breathed in deeply and ran a hand over his face, trying to wipe off the evidence of tears. He stood and made his way across the porch, stopping on the stairs to look up at the sky. It had been overcast all day but now it looked like it was really going to rain. The first drops were beginning to fall and splash on his face. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and began jogging towards Rose's house, marveling again at how much easier it was to run when you weren't wearing a suit and trench coat.

He arrived at the small house and knocked on the door. When there was no response he glanced up and saw that several lights were on, she was definitely in there. He knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing.

His clothes were beginning to wet through, the rain had intensified from a drizzle to much larger drops falling at a much more accelerated rate. He peered through the ground floor windows for any sign of movement. It was a relatively warm night so the windows were open about halfway.

He couldn't see Rose sitting on the floor, her back against the door, knees pulled up against her chest. If he had, he probably wouldn't have begun banging on the door as hard as he did.

"Rose!" he shouted as he pounded his fist against the offending wood. "Rose open the door! Rose please! Hear me out!"

He ran his hands through his hair, brushing the hood back and letting the rain pour down his head. He flashed on a flooding room, water pouring down his face as he stood unconcerned that he would die if he didn't move. Brushing off the memory he paced in front of the house for a few moments before throwing his arms up in defeat.

"Alright fine," he shouted over the rain. "We can do it like this then." He paused, choosing his words as carefully as he could. "I could never hate you. Do you hear me? Never! I don't blame you for being here, and I don't think of it as being stranded.

"You were right though. You do know me. You know what I was like when we first met. And you know what I was like right before Canary Warf. You know the difference, and that was because of you. Because you made me a better person. And you're right that I'm who I am today because of you, but that's something I'll always be grateful for. Because I have a chance that the Doctor could never have. I have a chance to know what it's like to be with you. To know what you look like when you wake up in the morning, what your hair feels like in my hand, the way you smile in bed. He can never have that, so it's him I feel sorry for."

He was pacing again, hands gesticulating wildly. "And you're right about me wanting to go home. I do want to go home. Ever since I lost it I've felt like a part of me was ripped out of my chest. But that world, that other world, that other life isn't my home anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. And I can't speak for him, for the Doctor, but I am almost certain that he doesn't feel any more at home there than I have hear this past month."

Inside the house, Rose sobbed into her arms. She could hear his words through the open window but it was almost too much to hope that she was really awake, that this was really happening.

"I thought you didn't want me," John said, his voice beginning to go hoarse from shouting. "I thought I could never be what you needed. I could never be him. I thought you hated me so I was running away. Because being this close to you, seeing you every day and never being able to touch you is killing me. I only have one heart now Rose, and it can't take much more of that."

His energy was dissipating. Ignoring the puddle that had formed on the stone he sat down against her door, his back now mere inches from her, though he didn't know it. "I love you Rose Tyler," he said, his voice quieter now but still loud enough to carry through the windows and door. "And the TARDIS hasn't been my home for years. I know that because after I lost you, it never felt like home again. My home is with you. If you'll have me."

For a moment, the only sound was the rain falling. Then John was falling, backwards into Rose's house as the front door opened. Lying across the threshold on his back he looked up and saw Rose standing over him, her tears replacing the raindrops as they fell onto his face.

"I love you my Rose," he whispered. "I want to come home."

Then Rose was on her knees beside him, her hand reaching out to wipe the water from his face. John leaned into her touch like a drowning man at a riverside. Twenty-seven days, four hours, twelve minutes. If cybermen attacked the house at that moment, he wasn't sure he'd be able to care.

"I love you too John."

When she leaned down and kissed him, John Noble Smith was home.

**The End**


End file.
